Recent telecommunication technology allows distribution of music information and data by way of the Internet. In music distribution, users operate terminal devices such as personal computers to download music data of prescribed musical tunes from electronic distribution facilities such as music download centers, so that users are able to play back musical tunes based on the downloaded music data.
Downloading music data from the music download center can be implemented by using portable telephones. Recently, portable telephones are further developed and improved in functions to enable setup for using designated parts of desired musical tunes as incoming call melody sounds, which are rung to notify users of reception of incoming calls from calling parties. Hence, the existing portable telephones are capable of playing back melody lines of simple musical tunes.
However, the conventional portable telephones are limited in melody playback functions so that limited numbers of tone colors can be used for playback. That is, the conventional portable telephones have problems in playback of ‘polyphonic’ musical tunes because they are incapable of accurately playing back the musical performance of orchestras with fidelity to original tone colors.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable telephone that is capable of accurately playing back polyphonic musical tunes with fidelity to original tone colors.